


Take A Risk With Me

by not_selfconfrontation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: "You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" kinda vibes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Archer - Freeform, Bougieness, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Gadget Whiz Pidge, Happy Ending, Heist, Idiots going on Heists, Insecure Lance (Voltron), M/M, Pining, Secret Agent Keith, Sexually tense fights, Socialite Lance, This is my love letter to heist shows like Killing Eve, Trips Around the World, bodyguard hunk, carmen sandiego - Freeform, i'm soooo excited for this, klance, rival spies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29951634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_selfconfrontation/pseuds/not_selfconfrontation
Summary: Lance, a wealthy socialite from a talented family, becomes a vigilante thief to restore his family's disgraced name. But when Keith, a seemingly rogue agent, keeps popping up and thwarting his missions, it becomes a race to the end. With each new heist, Lance can’t be sure what’s really getting stolen — the loot or his heart?
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 79





	Take A Risk With Me

**Author's Note:**

> This has multiple chapters, and might be the longest thing i've ever written. I'm super excited to share this with y'all! Let's watch some idiots try to rob people :)

NEW YORK

  
“Lance, are you ready?” He hears Hunk crackling through the earpiece. “Because you can tell me if you’re not. Ready, that is. We can call it off right—”

“Hunk!” Lance takes a moment to adjust his cufflinks, smoothing out his suit as the next model in line struts through the backstage curtains and onto the runway. “You’re gonna get me caught with all this whispering!” 

“Okay, I just think—”

“ _SHHH._ ” Okay, that was a bit too loud. One of the hair stylists takes a moment from flitting over the sparkly model in front of him to stare, disbelieving. Lance sends her a smile, like shhing the air is just something that us silly models do, ha ha. She turns back with a flip of her own well-coiffed hair. 

All around him, models, make-up artists and other vague elites are buzzing around like the end of the world, picking up last minute accessories and sparkling props. A swirl of technicolor and crystal. From backstage, the audience’s cheers are muffled and booming, like he’s in a fishbowl. It’s suffused with the sultry, up-beat playlist that bursts from all speakers. 

Another female model disappears behind the final curtain, with shoulder pads so big Lance winces in solidarity. Two women walk past him, their jeweled manicures glinting as they talk politics.

“I just don’t get why they need to spend so much money on the roads, instead of the helicopter pads on the SoHo highrises. Honestly, who even—”

“Tatiana,” the other woman sighs, “Regular people don’t take helicopters everywhere.”

“Okay, but—”

He tunes out. It’s the kind of dribbel he’s used to hearing over Sunday patio brunches and evening cocktails, mingling with other socialites and heiresses and blah-blahs that are always generally fluttering around his life.

Another model comes back through the curtain off the catwalk, dripping from head to toe in feathers and Dior crystals. Not exactly the crystals he’s here for, but still gorgeous. With her return, Lance becomes next in line. He sweeps a hand over his blue silk, gentle over the lacy parts. Thumbs over the silver cufflinks.

“Alright, alright, you’re next, buddy!” 

“Oh my god, _Hunk_ ,” He whispers through clenched teeth. 

“Okay, right, got it. Keepin’ it necessities only from here on out.” He imagines Hunk miming a zipper over his lips, such a Hunk thing to do. It calms his nerves just a bit.

“Model 18-A, you’re on in 3, 2—” 

Lance savors a deep breath, letting himself be present, for as long as he can. He thumbs the cufflinks once more. With a brush through the heavy velvet curtain, he’s transported to the catwalk. 

It floods in all at once. He’s a fish in the open ocean, washed over with ear-bursting applause. Popping lights, paparazzi flash and a glittering catwalk. He takes a starting pose, then swims through. Makes sure to keep his face carefully blank, a lesson he took from Veronica in her modeling days. The crowd goes wild for it. At another show house, they would have been subdued to light clapping, but Lotor lets them unleash at these events. A fucking glutton for fanfare, that one.

“They’re really eating it up.” Hunk’s surprised voice is an anchor and that alone deems it necessity.

“Don’t doubt the McClain genes, m’dude,” he whispers through clenched teeth.

“No offense, buddy, I know you’re a knockout, but I think it’s the suit.” 

Okay, yeah, he’s got a point. The piece of art that he’s been allowed to model is a showstopper, well worth the chunk of his mission budget. Slim fit. See-through lace for the shirt, pure Toussaint silk for the rest. The audience might say the real kicker are the cut outs. Geometric lines of lace on the jacket and pants that honestly leave Lance kinda chilly. But it’s worth it. The suggestive windows that tease the crowd with the planes of his chest, his shoulders, his inner thighs? Iconic. The kind of elegance to only make sense on stage. 

He’s fucking bubbly with the urge to laugh, to twirl and really show off how much he rocks the shit out of this suit, but, to him, the real kickers are the tiny silver cufflinks. Pidge’s special additions, built in her lab.

At the end of the walk is the circular platform, center of the spotlight. Here, he can see the whites of the audience's eyes. They’re ravenous now, phones and cameras clutched like utensils. He switches pose to pose, elated to serve, because he’d be lying if he said this wasn’t still his element. Even now, after all this year’s bullshit.

Hand to the hip, the other laid to his chest. Finally, with both hands in his pockets, he feeds them a wink and struts back. 

No time to enjoy the final applause. He focuses on slipping one cufflink from its slot into his palm, flicking it open to reveal its magnetic port.

As soon as he’s behind the curtain, his sights tunnel vision onto her. The final model of the show, wrapped in a burgundy dress of peau de soie silk. And there’s the pièce de résistance sitting pretty on her neck. The Daibazaal family’s ancestral necklace. A $5 million mosaic of rubies and emeralds, magnetically locked around her neck until the end of the night. But not if Lance has anything to do with it. 

At the precipice of the curtain, the stylists flock away, having preened her to death. He takes his chance. 

“Oh hey, you’ve got something on your neck,” he whispers. It's effortless for him to flit his hand around her nape, slipping the cufflink into its place amongst the other silver links. Effortless, near muscle memory after so much preparation, but no less heart-pounding.

She smiles gratefully. He looks on as she takes her cue, satisfied with the way the cufflink sits seamlessly on the necklace. 

“Honestly, buddy, that was masterful!” 

He heaves a deep breath, heart slowing now that he’s on his way to the dressing rooms. “Thanks, Hunkalicious.” He grins at Hunk’s laughter, no longer as worried about discretion. “See you at the reception?”

“You know it! Phase 2 has officially commenced.” 

Lance works his way through the flock, soldiering past glittery clouds of hairspray. As soon as the dressing room door clicks shut, he slumps into the nearest chair. A long held sigh bleeds out of him, his muscles melting. Then a smile splits across his face. No time to get comfortable. 

Phase 2, indeed.

  
❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

  
They converge near the hedges on the side of the Museum, where the showcase reception is being held. Hunk, in a black suit and sunglasses, makes the perfect image of his stoic bodyguard. Completely divorced from his usual position of fun-loving bodyguard.

“How is that suit different from the other one?” Hunk asks him. 

“This one only has, like, two cut-outs!” Lance poses, checking himself to make sure that, yes, there are just two slashes, matching lace cutouts down the outside of each thigh. The rest of the suit is an artful dark blue. He looks even better in this than he did on stage, and he makes sure to tell Hunk just that.

Hunk leaves it, but once they’re in line, he starts fidgeting again.

“I just don’t know if this is what Pidge meant by conspicuous.”

“Hunk. Buddy. What’s a better way to blend in here than to stand out?” 

Hunk tilts his sunglasses to give him a look, but it’s true! All around them, guests are dripping in the most expensive materials the Earth has to offer. In the sea of crystals and mink furs, the real standouts are the security, all dark stoic dots. Hunk, as it turns out, does not appreciate this comment.

When they get to the entrance, Lance slips the invitation to one of the dark dots acting as bouncer. The forged cardstock had felt real and weighty in his hands but the bouncer takes a second look at it anyways.

“McClain? I thought Lotor had—” the guy cuts himself off, but something sours inside Lance anyways. 

“Would you like to give him a call to make sure?” he says sweetly, through his teeth. 

The guard says nothing else, lifting the velvet rope and ushering them inside. It was a quiet exchange but Lance thinks he can feel eyes anyways, and it’s not the pleasant bubbliness of an audience. 

A heavy hand settles gentle on his shoulder. Hunk says nothing, but he doesn’t need to. Together, they walk into the Museum’s main ballroom, transformed and overgrown into a bursting garden. He delights in brushing his hand through the fake leaves that cover the walls from head to toe. Life and color at every angle. Logically he knows this is a finite space, but it feels like he could disappear, amongst the pops of Japanese maples, the wisteria and the rhododendrons. All along the farthest wall is a lit up stage, decorated with vivacious greenery like everything else, where a few models take poses now. Angels to be adored by the public. 

“Very Garden of Eden,” he muses. Long stretches of floral vines dangled here and there from the ceiling, light and tickly in the palm of his hand.

“Oh and another thing,” Hunk says, apparently not done. They wander over to the side looking on as the model in painfully giant shoulder pads poses. “I’m still not a fan of the whole ‘winging it’ part.” 

“Could you be any louder?” The music is sweet pop, loud and pulsating, but still!

“You’re one to talk!” Hunk sniffs, but nonetheless lowers his voice. He fiddles with a petaled vine hanging from the ceiling between them. “Just--it’s our first mission dude. Are you sure you don’t want to figure out, like, a real way to get it off her?”

“I’ll just do what I did before.” Lance scrunches his nose, a little bothered by the lack of faith. So easy his niblings could do it.

“She’s gonna recognize you!” 

“So I’ll just book it, classic move,” he scoffs, tone rising. “You watched Casino Royale with me dude, c’mon!”

“Too loooooud,” Hunk singsongs. Lance begrudgingly presses his voice back to a whisper.

“Look, all you gotta do is get him outta the way.” _Him_ being the ginormous bodyguard stuck to her side for the night. “Agent McClain will do the rest.”

He can tell Hunk’s rolling his eyes behind the sunglasses but he pays it no mind. How could he when the night was so beautiful? In this weird botanical microcosm, the air was heady with the dew of every flower in the book. Intoxicated with the technicolor of it all, his confidence swells. 

This would work out, first time or not. It kinda has to.

And with that, he decides, some real intoxication couldn’t hurt. 

“I’m gonna pop over to the bar real quick, okay buddy?” Hunk nods, still looking a little on edge, and goes off to give the room a quick sweep. 

Lance nudges his way through the crowd and hanging vines, stopping to mingle with one of the models. Some of them had been ordered to engage in menial small talk. Lance, who had snuck on to the casting sheet, was spared the task. Not that most of these people were jumping at the chance to mingle with a McClain these days, but whatever.

He plants himself on the leather barstool, shimmying into the lush give of the seat. Drums his fingers across the lacquered hardwood bar top. These events, for some reason, always had the same art deco bar, like they conjured it straight from an old speakeasy. Still, somehow, it fits.

The bartender is one stool over, attending to a guy somehow rocking a mullet at a fashion showcase. After she pours him a shot of something auburn and delicious-looking, she slides down to Lance.

“Welcome to the Garden, sir. What can I get you?” 

“Yes, hello ma’am.” He grins. She smiles politely. “I’ll have one of what he’s having.” 

Seconds later, it turns out that what he’s having is some bitter macho bullshit. Lance barely chokes it down, smiling weakly when the bartender raises an eyebrow.

He cuts a side-eye left. In a sleek burgundy suit, arms leaned casually over the bar, that guy is posed up like he owns the whole goddamn place. Which, actually, is par for the course with the guests here, but still — who even orders paint thinner like this? Red Suit must sense eyes because he turns to stare right back at Lance, eyebrows scrunched up. 

Oh, shit. 

He feigns a sudden innocence and flips back around.

After a bit, the guy returns to his drink. Lance figures he can at least focus on the plan while he’s sitting there. To him, it was simple. The model wearing the necklace would appear, as the evening’s highlight, to give a performance. Afterwards, when she retreated for her only break of the night, Hunk would distract her bodyguard. Leaving her blissfully alone. Which is where Lance would swoop in.

And after this, he muses gleefully, the rest of the event season would be a fucking cinch.

“Excuse me, sorry,” Lance calls out, just as the bartender passes by, polishing an old-fashioned shot glass. “Could I have a vodka martini, please?”

“How would you like it?”

“Shaken,” the grin on his face could light the room. “Not stirred.”

She returns a small smile, more amused by his attitude than the actual joke, and says it’ll just be a moment. Or, that's probably what she said, but Hunk’s groaning through the earpiece eclipses it.

“Lance, dude, buddy. Do I even need to say how bad that was? Because I’ll say it if you need me to.”

“That was the beauty of comedic timing at work!” He remarks, then flinches. Again, a little too loud. 

“Pfft,” comes scoffing out from his left. Hunk mutters something about going silent to avoid anymore crippling corniness, but Lance’s attention is needed elsewhere. Namely, the deranged little judgement coming from this absolute stranger.

“Is that what you call comedy, James Bond?” The guy leans back from his barstool to scowl at him. Now that Lance pays attention, he can pick out the finer satin embroidery to his outfit. Jacquard patterns, glinting in the light. Probably couture. That’s even more annoying.

“Oh my apologies,” he sneers. “Am I in the presence of a critic?”

“Well, am I in the presence of a spy?” 

“Yeah pal, you are!” Oops. Red Suit raises his eyebrows, and Lance quickly adds, “I _spy_ someone with no sense of humor!”

The bartender slides down Lance’s way with the martini. It’s clean, slick with that twist of lemon. Although the fun of it has been dampened, Lance slurps a long gulp anyways, holding the glass gingerly by the stem. Then he immediately slams it down, swallowing a cough. Jesus _fuck_. Totally forgot that vodka is vodka. Red Suit just rolls his eyes, gulping down another shot of his own bitter monstrosity.

“Some people at these events have no fun, I swear,” Lance grumbles, flicking petulantly at an orchid vine hanging just next to him. 

“Some people,” Red Suit drawls, “want to enjoy a drink in peace.”

“Sorry to break it to you, dude,” Lance sweeps a hand over the surrounding crowd, buzzing about in their finery. “But this isn’t exactly the place to do it.”

He doesn’t know what response he was expecting after that. Another retort, another eye-roll, maybe. But certainly not the way the guy admits, “True,” with a tiny chuckle. 

He’s not sure what to make of that either, that smooth vibrato, so he retreats to his drink, and to his pouting.

“Oh, c’mon,” Red Suit says. “You don’t need to pout.”

Lance continues to do exactly that. 

For a while, there’s nothing but the low pulsation of the music and the clinking of glasses as the bartender serves at the other end. He swirls a finger around the rim of his drink, swiping up beads of condensation, and resigns to waiting out the night.

Then — “Cool suit.” 

It’s dropped casually, a ripple to test the waters. Lance nearly misses it. When he peeks back, Red Suit is half-turned towards him, gaze resting on the suit in question.

Lance just hums. Takes a teeny sip of his drink, enough to look just as casual. “I’m gonna need a little more than that,” he says. Gives the glass a swirl. “There’s no shortage for cool clothing around here.”

“Alright.” There’s a squish of leather, and the sudden distant heat of a person right next to him. 

“Your suit looks stunning.”

His voice, so sincere and without a hitch, makes Lance flip immediately to face him. And — _Jesus_. In the evening’s lowlight, his eyes are two tiny galaxies, drawing Lance into orbit, all framed by a few stray tufts.

“Hmm. Just the suit?” Lance retreats to his drink, to hide how his heart stutters, taking another little sip —

“No.”

— only to choke on it completely, for the third goddamn time. The guy just keeps looking at him, eyes sparkling with mirth. 

“...my name’s Lance.”

“Keith.”

  
❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

“Nights like these are pretty fun, don’t you think?” Lance muses, head propped up on one hand.

Somewhere around, oh, two or three drinks in, he’s got his ankles tangled up with Keith’s, cozy in their own little bubble. They had spent the night sniggering, debating the worst of the fashion pretentiousness; a toss between Oversized Shoulder Pads and the model who was more taffeta than human. Keith’s loose unadulterated laughter keeps him rooted to the spot. Pours over his nerves like bourbon. Around them, the crowd is at a low buzz, as the target model begins to take center stage. He really should get ready. Soon. He’ll get to it. For now, Keith’s orbit is a little too warm to break away.

“I guess. Not really used to these kinda things.” Keith traces a finger around the rim of an empty glass.

“Oh, c’mon” He plucks an orchid from the nearby vine, tickles it under Keith’s chin till he’s chuckling, batting Lance away. “You gotta like all this glitz at least a little bit.” 

“It just...” Keith starts, then shakes his head. “There’s probably enough money in this room to buy a galaxy.” 

Lance hums. “Probably. Maybe just terraform Mars. Baby steps. Or build a time machine.”

“Just seems a bit of wasted potential, is all.” Keith shrugs. Lance hums noncommittally, knowing that he’s right but trying not to falter. Wasted potential wasn’t an unfamiliar concept to him.

But then Keith says, “I think anyone here could really change the world, if they wanted to.” 

He’s looking right at Lance as he says it, black eyes like liquid bronze. As if Keith can see straight to the core of him. It radiates like sunlight, a sudden ache pulsating in his gut, a slight heat at the back of his neck. The music around them has sweetened with delicate piano, the model crooning some sultry Frank Sinatra number, but Lance can’t bother looking. Can’t tear his gaze away from the galaxy in front of him.

“Alright then,” he says, after swallowing past the weirdness welling up in his throat. “What would you do with all this money, hm?”

Keith delays for just a beat, but Lance is too quick to catch him. “You already know, don’t front on me now!”

“Fine!” he chuckles. “Another motorcycle.”

“And then?”

“World hunger. Poverty. All that stuff.”

“And theeeen?” Lance jostles Keith’s ankles with his own, delighting in the way Keith jostles back.

“And then, after all that, I’d probably take you on a date.”

No hesitation, not even a blink. Just a grin so genuine that it yanks a matching one out of Lance. He tries not to fidget. Tries not to giggle and laugh like an absolute dork, but it’s kinda hard considering, _y’know_. That hair, wavy and tousled. The subtle muscles that he knows have been shifting underneath his suit. The handsome peek of canine in his smile.

Lance, pushing through a laugh, murmurs, “I don’t think you’ll have to wait too long for that.”

All around them, the crowd is buzzing as the model’s singing wanes away. Those couple of drinks slosh around loose and happy in his brain. Like, _really_ loose, because he honestly starts plotting how to come back after the mission. He’s hoping that maybe Keith would be willing to stick around through all the upcoming chaos, when Hunk starts barking in his ears, suddenly online again.

“Lance. _Lance_. Get ready, I’m going for it!”

The next few minutes flash by like this. 

He whips around just in time to see the model retreating from the stage, flanked by her bodyguard. But just as she approaches the side exit, Hunk materializes, with a comically ginormous plate of food that oh-so-suddenly tips out of his hands and onto her bodyguard.

“Ohmygod, I’m sooo sorry,” He hears Hunk lamenting from the earpiece. Bad acting aside, he’s doing a pretty good job of distracting the bodyguard with his flailing and panicking. The model looks on, before rolling her eyes, and continuing towards her exit.

“Shit.” Lance whips around, an apology quick on his tongue, but there’s only an empty stool waiting to receive it. Did — did Keith just ghost him? His brain glitches around the situation, pressing a hand to the stool to see that, _yes_ , it’s still warm, _no_ , he didn’t imagine Keith, and that’s when all the lights shutter off.

That weird part of his lizard brain takes a moment to panic-freeze his muscles. The sudden darkness, the rising screams rolling like water. One voice in particular, shrill and feminine, rises above all the rest.

“The necklace! The necklace, it’s gone, someone help!”

Then he jerks to his feet, sober in an instant. 

“Wow, that was fast!” Hunk praises in his ear. “How’d you get the lights to turn off, man?”

“That wasn’t me,” he hisses, and Hunk goes dead silent. Fuck, _fuck_ , that wasn’t him, so who the fuck was it?

He rips frantically through the surging crowd, the chaos that he had expected now pushing against him, making his way out to just anywhere other than here, when he spots movement from above. Squinting, there’s just the faintest shape of a person shimming up one of the vines, like goddamn Tarzan, and then crawling through one of the higher east windows

“Hunk! Outdoors, east side, someone else got it!”

“Someone else? Someone else who?!” 

He scrambles for the side exit, ducking past the bodyguards comforting the distraught model. Bursts into the open air. Here the area is a deserted courtyard with a few trees, separated from the empty street by waist-high hedges.

Okay, okay, if Lance was a thief, which he technically is, where would he go?

A twig snaps. He was wrong. The courtyard isn’t empty. A lone figure bursts from behind a tree, vaulting over the hedges and onto the street before situating themselves over a waiting motorcycle. 

“Hey!” He rushes after them, not prepared at all for a fight, because he didn’t plan for someone else’s goddamn counterheist. But he must not be as sober as he thought, because his legs get caught in the brambles, wood splinters scraping his thighs.

“Hey, asshole! Get back here with that!” 

The courtyard is flooded with light from the surrounding windows, and muted applause from inside the ballroom with the return of electricity. And there, sitting on a sleek black motorcycle, is Keith. With the necklace, glittering red and green in his hand. 

Their gazes lock, two planets in the same gravity. He makes sure not to blink, to confirm that _yes_ , that’s Keith, still handsome in his burgundy suit, and _no_ , he is not imagining this.

Keith’s eyebrows scrunch, as if he’s equally confused, and everything catches up at once.

“You,” Lance splutters, heat choking him. “ _You_ — ” the faint drift of sirens picks up. The anger gives way to urgency. He’s stuck watching, with futile attempts to yank himself out of the bushes, as Keith stashes the necklace into his pocket.

The engine purrs once, twice, and then Keith roars off into the night. With one blink, he’s already a blip in the cityscape horizon. When Hunk finds him, Lance is still staring into the dark, like maybe the necklace, or Keith, would eventually come back.

  
❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

“Out of nowhere!” Lance slams into the apartment, practically foaming from the mouth. “He just came out of fucking nowhere, with the goddamn suit! And the hair!” 

Hunk gingerly shuts and locks the door behind him and flicks on the light. Their main hideout was a penthouse, furnished with clean rosewood decor and dangling fairy lights. A wrap-around balcony that he loved to look out upon. Half past midnight, New York lights twinkle through floor to ceiling windows. When he had first picked this place, the windows had breathed class. Now all that glass looks perfectly breakable. 

“So his name’s Keith right?” Hunk frets, loosening and fiddling his tie. “Do we know any Keiths?”

“No!” Lance throws his hands up, before flopping onto the sofa. “We probably don’t even know _this_ Keith. Probably a fake name, from a fake asshole, in a fake disguise!” 

“So he’s not Keith?”

“Hunk!”

Something starts beeping, insistent and muted. Lance leans over and digs his laptop from underneath the sofa. When he logs in, Pidge’s face is immediately waiting for him.

“Okay, so there’s a Keith involved?” Even through pixels, Pidge’s disdained confusion comes through clearly. “What the hell happened, guys?”

“Lance got sweet on a fake guy, and he ran off with the necklace!” Hunk leans over the sofa, giving Pidge a little wave. “Thanks for the cufflinks, by the way.”

Wait a minute.

“Or,” Lance goes, clarity taking over his senses. He shoves the laptop onto the coffee table, now driven into pacing back and forth across the living room, shoes clacking on the hardwood. “Or, or, _or_ — he’s a honeypot!”

“What!”

“What?”

“That espionage thing! C’mon Pidge, you watched Casino Royale with us too! He knew we were coming for the necklace, he fucking distracts me, then he runs off!”

“To who though?” Pidge asks. 

“Lotor!” Lance practically shouts it from the rooftops. “Who else? Of course it would be that walking plastic surgery experiment!”

“Okay, Lance, I know Lotor is enemy number one right now,” Hunk assures, “but why would he have someone ruin his own event and steal his own necklace?”

That stops Lance in his pacing, but only for a moment. “Okay, well, how’d he know about the cufflinks? How was Keith,” he spits the name like it’s corrosive, “gonna steal it if he didn’t know about those? Lotor’s probably spying on us, he probably knew it from the start and sent Keith just to fuck it up!” Distantly, he knows the logic is twisted. But the thought of Lotor getting another score against him clogs common sense from getting through.

“Dude, he’s probably not doing your honeypot thing,” Pidge says. “And Lotor’s definitely not spying on us. That freak couldn’t hack my systems if he tried.” 

“Well!” Lance swipes a hand through his hair, which flops limply against his forehead. “What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t think we can deal with Lotor and this Keith dude at the same time,” Hunk says, then pauses. “Can we?”

“I’ve got some new...gadgets, in mind,” Pidge says, a quite innocent tone to her voice.

Lance feels his phone buzz in his pocket, a text message from Rachel. 

_Rach: are you back from your trip yet?? I’m gonna save you the last of the Pringles!!_

And suddenly the ground is solid underneath him. Rooted and reasonable.

“We aren’t here for that. We’re here for leverage.” The words huff out of him, the truth weighing annoyingly heavy in his chest. “Get all the loot. Then we blackmail Lotor. That’s the plan guys.” For now, he thinks. 

Everyone nods, and Lance flops back onto the couch. Hunk disappears into one of the bedrooms, then rolls out their whiteboard. Still littered with newspaper clippings, gadget diagrams, and event flyers.

“Here are the schematics for the museum” Pidge says, her digital visage replaced with the blueprints for their next event.

“So can we talk about codenames or...” Hunk goes. “Because Lance and I have some ideas.”

Lance texts Rachel that he’ll be back tomorrow morning. As they all begin piecing the details together, his gaze can’t help but draw to the windows again. Out there in the world, somewhere, is their next item. And somewhere else, maybe miles away by now, is Keith. Gone. Disappeared.

For now.

  
❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

They all spend the night working out their plans, ditching their evening wear for sweats and Indian takeout. He lets Hunk sleep back at the penthouse. By the time his train gets through the city and back to the hills of upstate New York, he’s ready to drop into bed and relieve his body of its responsibilities. The train station is sparse, a gap between the popular commuter hours. As he heads through the exit doors, ready for his Uber, the relative calm makes him glad. 

“Hey, excuse me!”

Quiet, except for a few, apparently.

Lance stands patiently as some guy, resting on the outdoor waiting bench with a magazine, leaps up and bounds towards him. Staring at Lance like he’s hung the constellations, but can’t quite remember which one.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

The front page of his newspaper, one of those trashy tabloids that’s printed daily, has the chaos of last night printed all over it. His patience seizes into panic. This guy can’t _possibly_ suspect — no. That makes no sense. But it puts a hot sweat on the back of Lance’s neck anyways.

“Uuuuuh —” he goes. “No?”

“Yeah, you’re one of those McClains! Up over by the hills!” The guy snaps in revelation, looks at Lance like he’s supposed to share in the excitement of this discovery. But all Lance can do is slouch with relief that this is the regular kind of recognition and not the _you nearly robbed millions of dollars yesterday_ kind.

“Yup. Yup, that’s me.”

“You’re the one who...uh...you do the...things?” The regular kind of recognition, for him, has now come with its regular embarrassment. “Oh wait! You do all that diplomacy stuff right?”

“You’re thinking of my mom. But, it was nice to meet you.” From the corner of his eye, he sees the Uber pull up. As he starts backing away, the guy keeps throwing out guesses, no longer interested in Lance’s actual presence. By the time Lance gets dropped off at his house, he bets the guy is still there, throwing out random theories.

His house is something out of Architectural Digest. All mediterraean tiles and rustic wood. The whole neighborhood is like that, foundations built with the same basic architecture, although the residents usually like to mess with it. Steve Harvey’s old house down the street still has that mechanical bull installed on the front lawn. 

The McClain home has stayed relatively normal. Cozy. When he steps onto the porch, his sister’s handmade windchimes greet him, sweetly tinkling in the breeze. A middle school relic. 

Only him, Rachel and Luis have been hanging around home lately. The house is empty, but the savory smell of someone’s breakfast still wafts through. In the kitchen, he makes his way over to the pantry, digging through until he gets his hand on the last tube of Pringles. But his fingers are clumsy in their exhaustion, and he knocks the canister to the floor.

“Whyyyyy,” he drones, dragging a hand over his face. 

He follows lazily as it rolls over the tile, through the foyer to the living room, unapologetically picking up momentum until it crashes into the small space between the family’s display cabinets. 

All of their awards and accomplishments, glassy and polished. Cramped even in the two spacious cabinets. His father’s Nobel Prize in chemistry. A newspaper cutting from the grand opening of Rachel’s art house in the city. Veronica’s first robot prototype, when she switched from modeling to mechanical engineering, as easily as day switches to night. 

“What,” she had said with a smirk. “Like it’s hard?” 

The photo of Lance and his mother at one of the many award dinners in her honor. When he drags a finger over the frame, dust collects on the tip. She had negotiated a peace treaty in the midst of some conflict, a truce that’s lasted to this day. A young Lance in a tiny tux, bundled up in her arms. Even in his exhaustion, a tiny smile finds purchase, the old muscle of familial pride.

At this time of day, sunbeams bounce off the pool and refract through the living room’s long windows. It creates a waving lightshow all over the carpet, the grand piano, bookshelves. One wave splashes over the space between the two cabinets, framing the family handprint art painted on to the wall. Fading, but no less beloved. Mom had let him crawl in her lap, while everyone dipped their hands in paint and smacked their colored palms on the wall. Her indigo palm cradling his baby blue one.

“What are you smiling at, weirdo?” He leaps out of his skin. Rachel has slinked up behind him, her arms overflowing with notebooks, folders and rolled up print samples. 

“And why are the Pringles on the floor? I didn’t save them so you could toss ‘em around!” 

“Someone needs to put a bell on you.” Lance puts the Pringles under his armpit and takes some of Rachel’s cargo. “Just skulking around like that. And I’m the weirdo?”

“Not my fault you can’t hear, apparently!” They settle into the plush sofa and let her papers spill all over the coffee table. The Pringles are set aside next to him.

Rachel looks at him, then frowns.

“Did Hunk not come back from your trip with you?” 

“Nah, he was a little too exhausted for the train. He’ll be back here later.” Although bodyguards had always floated around them, his mother had been really insistent on protection lately. Jozef, Rachel’s own bodyguard, was probably lurking somewhere upstairs.

Her frown sets a little harder. “Is that safe? I mean — ”

“Rach. My sweet, sweet sister. It’ll be fine.” He shrugs, ignoring her eye roll. “Not like anyone is really gunning to get near the McClains these days.”

“You’re preaching to the choir.” Rachel ruffles through the collection in front of her, looking as though one of those notebooks might open up and chomp down on her. Scooting over, Lance catches the names of her old artists friends, who used to talk his ear off about Pollock and non-representationalism and shape configuration.

“What’s all this?” 

“Three of my guest curators for the year have pulled out. Citing a 'lack of clarity' in the reputation of the ArtHouse.” A scoff. “More like they’re just afraid of Lotor. My artists are losing sponsors just for being associated with us. And now they can’t afford to finish their residencies.” She keeps a brave tone, but her shoulders give the tiniest slump. “I’m trying to find the old archivals from 2015, maybe scrape together something profitable for the show at the end of summer.” 

His exhaustion is forgotten.

“Well then,” Lance goes, nudging his shoulder into hers. “Guess we better start scraping.” She nudges him back, with a tiny smile, and they both get to work, splitting the pile in half. He grabs the TV remote, flipping open to TMZ’s morning report.

“Okay news just broke last night,” one of the crew barks. “Lotor, socialite and heir to the historic multi-conglomerate Daibazzal Industries, had one of his events _robbed_.” The whole room ooohs.

Lance tries not to visibly melt with relief when she says there are currently no suspects. 

“This was the first event of his summer long, worldwide showcase celebrating his family’s ancestral art, history, and collections.”

“Didn’t they just get accused of using slave labor?” another crew member asks.

“I heard that was just slander!”

Rachel reaches for the remote, but Lance sticks a hand out to stop her. 

“Don’t turn it off,” he says. She looks at him like he’s crazy, but obeys. Instead, the volume is lowered to a bare whisper but still enough for Lance to hear and keep track.

“You know mom’s board members are starting to pull out too?” Rachel says, 

“You mean all her dead weight?” 

“Yup. They think Lotor’s gonna come after them next, since Mom’s the one who tried to take him down.” 

Lance didn’t expect anything less. His parents had clawed their way up here, through good work, but it had centered them amongst serpents. The crowd last night was filled with them, cackling and gilded, ready to chomp the throat of anyone else in that room if it meant more for themselves. He tries not to let the anger stir up too much. It’s faint but insistent. 

Without his mother’s organization, all those nonprofits and pro-bono legal groups and diplomats lose their funding. Because a bunch of bald middle-aged assholes don’t want to cross Lotor’s toes. Keith had called them wasted potential. Once again, it rings true.

 _Look at the pot calling the kettle black_ , some mean voice whispers in the back of his mind.

“So,” he clears his throat. “Can’t you bankroll ArtHouse yourself?”

“I am!” Rachel throws up her hands and a few papers go flying. “I’m already covering all the living fees and residencies for, like, a dozen artists but I only have enough for a couple more months and I just —” She collapses against the couch. He offers his arm to her shoulder, trying not to feel useless. On the table, revealed by the fluttering papers, is a leather bound notebook with 2015 stamped on the cover.

“Look what I found,” he sings, waving the notebook to her. She gasps, clutching it to her chest like an overboard sailor offered a buoy.

“You are my hero!” 

“Just a hero? I was thinking more like angel, savior —” 

“ _Jesus_ ,” she slaps him lightly with the notebook.

“Well, maybe not as high as Jesus, but I appreciate it.” They both settle back, chuckling. On screen, Lotor’s pointy, smarmy face is pulled into a sad affect, as he despairs to the media over his family’s lost necklace.

“He fucking deserves it, doesn’t he?” Rachel says.

“He sure does.” 

Rachel cleans up the rest of the pile, thanking him again. He’s happy to help, but his mind drifts to the guy at the train station, who couldn’t remember Lance as anything other than the guy lucky enough to be born within this family. The guy with enough clout to get into a fashion show but not enough to be recognized afterwards. And uncontrollably, infuriatingly, he drifts back to Keith. 

_I think anyone here could change the world, if they wanted to._

Lotor continues to mourn, his adoring serpent public mourning with him. “Whoever these miscreants were that robbed my family will be —” 

The TV glitches to black, Lance’s finger digging into the remote button with sick satisfaction.

He can do more than find a notebook. He has to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Comments are always loved and appreciated and cherished under the beautiful light of day! Next chapter is in California and it should be out soon!
> 
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